I don't remember where it was, but I remember once reading that ideas that never "become anything" have no real value.
Whereas I would have to say that that's a bit harsh, I get the underlying point. If you don't develop your ideas into something, you're basically engaged in a glorified form of mental masturbation.
As a writer, that's why I tend to commit pretty much everything to "paper," at least in a rough draft sense. Of course, a lot of those rough ideas never actually leave my drafts folder — and many are deleted — but it's surprising how often allowing an idea to "percolate" for a few days or weeks can help distill those pretty random thoughts into something worthy.
Write it and Leave it!
One of the reasons I have never worked that well with strict deadlines is that I like to write something — let's say, about 90% — and then just walk away from it.
Then I'll come back a few days later, and it's rather remarkable not only how easy it will be to reorganize the words AND spot all the typos and missing words.
It's not a technique that works for everyone, of course... but it has always been pretty effective for me. As long as I have enough continuity to get the main idea down, I actually find it easier to polish and finish an article a few days (or weeks!) later.
So, All Those Drafts...
Mrs. Denmarkguy is hanging out with our adult kids in Seattle for a few days, and that usually means I end up using my "alone time" doing "busy work," mostly in the form of tidying up my own projects that have been neglected for a while.
So that's part of what I'm doing, this afternoon: Going through the 40-something partial and nearly finished drafts I have stored here on PeakD; tossing some that are just dumb (or really "dated" by now), and working a bit on some of the ones that are worthy of finishing.
I'm even considering making up some of my own conspiracy theories... involving Covid, Aliens and secret plots! The reason that amuses me is that — in all seriousness — science fiction writers tend to be better prognosticators than professional futurists.
Fear Here, Fear There, Everywhere Fear...
Sometimes, I find myself wondering whether people have to be afraid of something in order to pay attention to it, these days.
Seems like all the news is served up with a healthy dose of fear. Nothing seems to be just information any more... it's information we should be afraid of.
We're afraid of Covid, we're afraid of the government, we're afraid of rioters, we're afraid of the banking system, we're afraid the economy will collapse.
People are AFRAID of so many things, yet half the time it feels like the fear is purely reactionary, and not the result of educated inquiry and understanding of the topics at hand. Once again, I ponder something I wrote about a few months back: Are we Addicted to being afraid?
Well, I'm not... and so, I'm going to go back to my tidying up pile and see if I have some ideas worthy of being set free.
Thanks for reading!
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Created at 20200729 18:04 PDT
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